


Jesus the Film Student

by mr_orange



Category: Marble Hornets, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Aaron suffers the consequences, Alternate Universe - College/University, Entry 83, Eric and Aaron are both in the student film, Eric is too nice for his own good, Explicit Language, Gen, I added a chapter, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mental Instability, Paul is Alex, Psychosis, Slight Ableism, The AU no one asked for, chapter two is somehow even worse than chapter one, its 2017 and i still love marble hornets, never seen marble hornets?, then this is just a nice college AU, “nice college au” is shattered in chapter two oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-01 14:39:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mr_orange/pseuds/mr_orange
Summary: Eric auditions for Paul’s student film “Marble Hornets” and then they both force Aaron to try out too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> anyone even know what marble hornets is anymore? well it doesn’t matter because Eric forcing an unwilling Aaron to audition for a shitty student film because he loves his friend? more likely than you think. 
> 
> FUCK 8x03! ERIC DID NOT HAVE TO BE DID LIKE THAT!

Aaron didn’t know what to make of the situation he was in. Eric told him the audition would only take a minute and then they’d be off to dinner. He’d stood restlessly outside a closet sized room he hadn’t even the thought to fully look inside when he’d heard Eric’s close friend Paul ask “does he want to audition?” and then Eric was calling Aaron into the mustard yellow office space in their college’s film and art building.

“Jesus wants you to audition for his groundbreaking student film Marble Hornets.” Eric almost sang while tugging on his boyfriend’s hand. “And isn’t there some wild saying that when Jesus calls you should answer?”

“I’m pretty sure you just made that up,” Paul chimed in from his spot behind a clunky, very outdated looking camera. “But yes I want to know if you’d like to audition, Aaron.” Aaron stood with his mouth hanging open, a very unsure and uncomfortable look in his eyes. He very obviously wanted to say no.

“I’m uh, that’s not really... my thing, Paul.” He tried to turn him down without being downright dickish. Eric tugged his hand again and adopted a very disarming puppy dog face.

“Come on, hot stuff, you’re perfect for being on camera.” He pleaded, drawing out the final a-sound and peering up at Aaron through his reddish blonde eyelashes. Aaron’s eyes darted from Eric to Paul, watching the situation with a poorly suppressed smile.

“It’ll only take a second,” Paul offered to Aaron, though not at all the offer he wanted (which was to leave immediately).

And then Aaron was in a metal folding chair in front of Paul’s camera before he even realized he reluctantly agreed. “You’ll be reading for a character I haven’t named yet, but he’s Eric’s best friend.”

“The main character is named Eric?” Aaron blanched. “How fitting.” He sent a smile back at his boyfriend.

“Complete coincidence,” Paul rolled his eyes. “But yes, the protagonist is named Eric and he has a cool, edgy best friend that could probably be named Aaron if you play your cards right.” It was Aaron’s turn to roll his eyes as Paul handed him a read sheet with only a couple lines of dialogue. “Whenever you’re ready, Aaron. I’ll feed you Sarah’s lines.”

The dialogue wasn’t any good, and Aaron tried his hardest to read like shit in attempt to not have to actually commit to this garbage student film. But the audition was over in roughly thirty seconds, Aaron hardly getting through his third line before Paul cut him off abruptly, telling him “that was enough.”

“Leave your email on that paper beneath Eric’s and I’ll get back to you ASAP.” Paul instructed him after shutting off the camera. _Should I leave a fake one, just in case?_ But the smile on Eric’s face as he stood up wiped his mind of any plausible fake emails and he actually wrote his real, personal, very real, very own email down for Paul to exploit as he pleases. Aaron started towards the door.

“So where are you guys headed?” Paul asked as he began shuffling through scripts. Aaron sighed inwardly and stopped in his tracks. Eric was leant casually up against the door frame.

“We’re just gonna grab some dinner.” Eric replied, that dazzling smile still lingering behind. “Wanna join?” He added as an afterthought. Aaron shot him a disapproving Look, one that Paul must have caught.

“Nah, I have auditions to sort through.” He conceded, shoving said scripts into a canvas messenger bag and beginning to dismantle his tripod. “Thanks though.”

Eric laced his fingers through Aaron’s again and clucked apologetically. “That’s too bad.” He waved his free hand and allowed Aaron to lead him out of the room. “Later, Jesus!” He called in farewell.

Once out the building, Aaron turned to his boyfriend and whined, “I can’t believe your stupid, pretty face tricked me into doing that.”

Eric smirked and shook his head. “All part of my irresistible charm, baby.” He added an obnoxious wink before tugging his boyfriend towards their car. “Time to vore some fuckin’ noms.”

Aaron quirked his eyebrow. “If you ever say that shit again we’re breaking up.”

-

The next day Aaron received an email from jesusprodutions@gmail.com with the subject deemed as “cast.” Aaron felt his stomach drop. _God is real and his son wants me dead,_ he thought contemptuously, hesitantly opening the email. It read:

_Aaron,_

_I’ve combed through all my auditions and have decided you are the perfect fit for Eric’s right hand man, Tim. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to find out that Eric is playing Eric, too. Read-throughs start in a week, on November 4th, 5pm, at my place._

There was a paragraph of “additional information” that included Paul’s address and phone number, a link to film dates, and some other film student bullshit that Aaron glanced over without actually processing. He closed his phone and stared from his spot in the living room at Eric making lunch in the kitchen.

“Eric, what the actual _shit_ did you just get me into?”


	2. it’s entry 83 basically

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron watches the events of chapter one through Paul’s camera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF YOU DONT WANT TO SHATTER THE CUTE OF CHAPTER ONE THEN DONT READ THIS!! ITS BASICALLY TAKING THE MARBLE HORNETS CONCEPT AND ACTUALLY PUTTING IT IN MOTION! ITS THE BAD STUFF! 
> 
> also i have no idea when i decided that carl was gonna be jay it makes no sense but he is for some reason. 
> 
> this is not only the conceptually worst idea I’ve ever had but it was also written in less than fifteen minutes and read through once. chapter one was enough but this one is really pushing it and i absolutely hate myself for testing the fates like this.

Aaron stared blankly at the footage held on the tape he’d stolen from a dead man’s pocket. He remembered this day. Vaguely. It was so long ago. It was the tape of him and Eric auditioning for Marble Hornets. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring at the final frame of the tape without a thought in his mind until his — no, Carl’s laptop screen dimmed, indicating disuse. Except could this even be considered Carl’s laptop after... after the rendezvous in Benedict Hall? Carl was dead. And now the hooded man who tormented him, stole his medication, and lured him into the woods while in a relapse-induced psychosis was dead too.

_He’d been reduced to coughing, spluttering mess by the time the hooded man stopped in front of Aaron, shaking a bottle of pills knowing full well what would happen when Aaron didn’t, or rather, was prevented from taking them. Aaron desperately grabbed for the bottle, but in his state of weakness he barely even grazed the air above his head. The hooded man tilted his head knowingly, and Aaron could almost hear the taunt of “ya almost had em” in the simple nuance. Aaron’s body was racked by more coughing, a phlegmy-bile burning in his throat when he heard a plastic thunk in front of him._

_That fucking mask. The one he hastily painted and wore in attempt to scare answers out of Carl whose nose was deep in the rabbit hole. Expect now it served as a reminder of what happened when he relapsed. For a while the blackouts scared him shitless, but looking back, he couldn’t tell if what he did in his dissociative was even that bad or if he’d been forced to believe it was bad by a former college friend with an inability to leave the past in the past. Aaron shoved the mask aside and felt his ears begin to screech. Of fucking course the Faceless Monstrosity in a suit decided he’d pop by for a visit now._

_The guy in the hoodie had already began sprinting away, Aaron stumbling blindly after him to distance himself from Ole Thin Mints. And then the time glitches, the location skips, running and running and running and falling and drowning and screaming and coughing and a fire — the tunnel and hooded man, but Aaron had him pinned down while punching with as much strength as he could muster and then_

_The hospital. Aaron screamed, he yelled at the hooded figure in the doorway to his old enclosure._

_“I don’t belong here! Why’d you bring me here?”_

_But Aaron knew he’d get no answer. Partially because he knew they knew he knew the answer. Aaron is still broken. Still fucked up. Still a psychopath who needed to be locked in a cage. He fell back against the wall on his ass, clutching his pounding head and willing his eyes to stop burning. The hooded man had disappeared and Aaron lurched forward onto his hands to go after him—_

_But now he’s skidding down a steep slope of leaves and mud and he lands back in the hospital, in a badly burned room full of broken ceiling tiles and charred paint chips. He struggled to crawl to the nearest exit, stumbling onto his feet and finding himself falling to his hands and knees on the clean tile of his home’s kitchen. Turning rapidly on his knees he finds himself in the room he left Carl in. Except now he found Carl propped against his living room wall, a bleeding wound below his ribs and not a sign of life on the once youthful boy’s face. Aaron felt static within his head intensify as he crawled closer to the body._

_But Aaron could feel the hooded fucker behind him, so he whirled around, ready to grab his fucking ankles and wring his neck. The hooded asshole was already running out Aaron’s back door, on his heels was a mad man screaming._

_“I’ll kill you!”_

_And they ran through the hospital’s maze of hallways, Aaron chasing a man he was ready to kill. Then a time glitch and Aaron was socked in the jaw by the hooded fucker and he landed on the green tiles of Benedict Hall. Desperately drinking in not enough air, Aaron scanned the area for a weapon — anything to bash the dickhead’s skull in with. He blindly grabbed something that looked a wrench and lurched towards the hooded man, who —_

_Who fell. Off the second story floor. Over the railing and landed with a spine crushing thud. Aaron stumbled over to the window-like structure and peered down at the lifeless body beneath him. After a shocked second, Aaron dashed for the stairwell, flying down the two flights of stairs and sliding into the room where his tormentor’s body lay. He stared for a moment, watching for any signs of breathing or movement or life in general. And then he reeled towards the body and dug around his pockets, finally pulling out a tape and then his medication._

_He downed a pill dry, pocketing the bottle as well as the tape. Aaron reached for the hooded man’s mask, ready to tear it off and reveal the identity of the man who’d been following and taunting Carl and himself for years. Then static rang in his ears and he didn’t even have to look to know that No Face Asshole was here to claim another body._

_So Aaron ran from Benedict Hall. Time glitched, and he skipped from place to place for such short amounts of time he could hardly pinpoint his exact location. Until his vision cleared and his headache subsided, surrounded by complete darkness save for a streetlight above his head. He lay sprawled on the concrete below him. For a few seconds, all Aaron did was breathe. Since his medication was stolen the other day he hadn’t been able to sufficiently draw in a satisfying lungful of oxygen, but his brain was slowly calming down to his normally fragile mental state. He pushed himself into a sitting position and scanned the area, his eyes landing on the hooded man’s body only a few feet away._

_Aaron gathered his feet underneath himseld and approached the man. He was laying in the exact same position he’d fallen in. If Aaron didn’t know any better, it’d almost look like the man had simply laid down on the concrete for a nap. Again, Aaron reached for his mask but found himself laying face down on a forested floor._

And now, Aaron replayed the tape he’d stolen from the hooded man’s body over and over, until he felt stable enough to acknowledge the truth. Eric, in the video, was wearing the same hoodie as the asshole he’d chased through the hospital and Benedict Hall. The same hoodie as the man who stole his medication and waited patiently for psychosis to set it. The same hoodie as the man who fell to his death before Aaron’s eyes. Eric Raleigh, the love of Aaron’s life, was dead.

And Aaron didn’t even know if he’d try to stop Eric falling from that window if he’d known it was him beforehand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never once in my life thought i’d write something in which I willingly kill off Eric Raleigh but here we fucking are. if anyone for some reason reads this chapter it’s basically a rewrite of entry 83 where chapter one is the footage on the tape aaron takes from the hood guy.

**Author's Note:**

> and then THE BAD STUFF goes down. use your imagination. 
> 
> anyways go watch marble hornets on the youtube machine: bask in its retro internet aesthetic.


End file.
